Leading Moroccan journalist Ahmed Benchemsi has difficulty speaking about Nichane, the vibrant Arabic-language news magazine he started four years ago, in the past tense. A passionate advocate for secularism, gender equity and individual rights and a vociferous critic of Islamist ideologies, Benchemsi was forced last Friday to close Nichane after major state-owned corporations subjected it to an advertising boycott that drove down revenues by almost 80%.

The motivation behind the boycott is absurd to the point of hilarity. But since it reflects the official policy of King Muhammad VI, no one is laughing. Last year, Nichane ran an opinion poll asking Moroccans to rate their satisfaction with the monarchy. Ninety-one percent expressed approval of His Majesty – a stratospheric approval rating like that would be the stuff of sweet dreams for western politicians.

Yet the palace declared the very idea of such a poll intolerable, and the king beyond questioning. According to Benchemsi, the security apparatus was worried not so much about this particular poll but what other, future polls might reveal. "They pretend to like democracy, but don't want to bear any of its costs," he muses.

The royal response was swift. The police burnt 100,000 copies of the poll issue in the printer's plant. Not long after, the palace-owned Omnium Nord-Africain Group, Morocco's largest corporation, pulled all advertising and began pressuring other palace-linked businesses to follow suit. Nichane's francophone sister publication, TelQuel, also a bestseller, could withstand the pressure thanks to a diverse cohort of international advertisers. But the same multinationals have little advertising interest in Morocco's Arabic press. Despite being the country's most popular Arabic magazine, Nichane was effectively asphyxiated by the regime.

When he founded TelQuel in 2001 at the age of 27, Benchemsi hoped to enjoy the increasingly open media environment under Morocco's new king. But reporting under the tagline "Le Maroc Tel Qu'il Est" – "Morocco As It Is" – meant wading into dangerous territory: the king's salary, Morocco's secret service, and even reinterpreting the Qur'an. Initially, Benchemsi's legal woes were merely civil: a member of parliament sued for defamation and he received a suspended sentence for libel.

Then, in 2006, Nichane ran a cover story on Moroccan humour, printing popular jokes about the king, religion, and other taboo topics. Moroccan Islamists declared Nichane worse than any Danish publication, and the prime minister banned the magazine for several months and closed down its website. Staffers were charged with "damaging the Islamic religion, lacking proper respect for the king, and publishing of writings contrary to public morals".

In 2007, Benchemsi himself went on trial over simultaneous editorials in TelQuel and Nichane that used a familiar tone to address the monarch. Police raided the printing plant to destroy copies before they hit the stands. Benchemsi was interrogated for two days in custody and charged with "disrespect for the king". Three years later, the case remains pending – while other journalists face an even harsher fate. One spent seven months in jail earlier this year for criticising the state. Another publication was forced into bankruptcy after being subjected to a massive boycott similar to the one that brought down Nichane.

Of course, high-profile trials carried a price for the regime, offering Benchemsi a platform and free publicity for his articles. When a judge challenged Benchemsi as to why he dared address the king with the term "brother", the young editor quipped: "King Hassan II always told us he was the father of all Moroccans – so that entitles me to respectfully call his son my brother." Even the judge could not suppress a laugh.

The regime's advertising boycott, therefore, marks a strategic coup. Nichane has disappeared without any trial or police raid. Morocco, which hosts the World Economic Forum later this month, has hit upon a PR-savvy way to suffocate dissidents. Unlike, say, Iran, which faces global condemnation for torturing and killing journalists, Morocco and other "moderate" regimes are increasingly leveraging their command economies to crush independent media without bloodying their hands.

For Benchemsi, the real loss is his prominent platform for spotlighting some of the Middle East's top young liberal journalists. Nichane – one of very few Arabic-language publications broaching such topics as gay rights and religious freedom – offered average north Africans a powerful cultural counterpoint to growing Islamist forces. The real winner from Nichane's untimely demise is thus the very Islamists the Moroccan monarchy claims to hold at bay. Perversely, autocrats and Islamists share an interest in silencing the liberal voices that threaten their respective power bases: the state apparatus and the "Arab street".

Benchemsi might seem a provocateur who overstepped the boundaries of his "native culture". But it bears noting that he launched his publishing venture the same year Osama bin Laden launched the September 11 attacks. Middle Eastern "culture" remains up for grabs, with both Islamist and liberal voices vying for market share. To defeat extremism, the west must help nurture genuine liberals like Benchemsi, who offer their audiences authentic alternatives to both the Islamists' poisonous ideological brew and the autocrats' stifling vision of modernity without freedom.